I figured it would be. Dial-Tone will likely cost more on ebay now than a membership, plus there was the fact that the club got the leftover Slaughters from SDCC last year, so I figured the same thing might happen with Zarana this year. And there's a few club-only figures I want to buy, like the IG Undertow and DTC Copperhead. And after I missed out on Big Lob...

The subscription figures have historically been bagged. Dial-Tone will be also, but they are offering a 600 piece carded run at the convention this year. If any are left after the con they'll be in the online store, but the way this year's going, I wouldn't count on that.

Most of the other exclusive figures that are available online are carded or come boxed in some way. Convention sets come in a big box with a foam insert and there is also a bagged set available. Show souvenirs have been a mix. There have been both bagged and carded, but I think they're usually bagged. Those may or may not make it to the store after the con. Last year's are still available, for example, but other than some parachute figures, most souvenirs sell out at the con or shortly after, they usually don't hang around for long.

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"I sell the drugs that keep you people from seeing dragons at night." - Gus "Psych"

Club membership gets you a free figure, either 3.75" or 12", 12 months of the Club newsletter, free listings on mcax.com (now online), access to the forums, and paid member pricing on all items in the store.

I've always gotten the 12" member figure in the past so that, along with the newsletter, is worth the price IMO. It's debatable if the magazine is worth it or not. Personally, I like it, but there are a lot of people that complain about it not having the kind of conent that they want to read about. Mcax.com, I haven't used that yet as it just came on, but it is a sales alternative to eBay, Craigslist and forum postings. It remains to be seen if that's a worthy perk.

I think it's a way better deal than the Gentle Giant Premier Guild, for example, because you get one bust and a ****-ton of headache for your $60 (plus shipping) with that subscription.

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"I sell the drugs that keep you people from seeing dragons at night." - Gus "Psych"

Noticed that the Wal-Marts around here no longer have GI JOE figures in their toy aisle...

Quite a few of my WMs never even carried the POC line from the beginning, but I've noticed the few that did have recently pulled out.

Ditto here. Back in January during the post-holiday reset, one of the three local WMs dropped the Joes (along with about 75% of the rest of their boys action figure aisle lines). When I went into the two that had not dropped them today, those two stores had dumped the Joe stuff into the clearance aisle (and had marked them down, oddly enough), and there was no space for them on the plan-o-grams. It seems that the Summer Marvel Movie Toy Menace has taken its first casualty, and it's one of Hasbro's own properties. Ironic, I think.

My Walmart did another reset the other day to make room for the Thor figures. After the shuffle, the Bravo Vehicle slot went away (after never having stock) and the Alpha and figure areas moved. Still no new stock, however.

They also made room for the Pirates of the Caribbean figures, which I think I mentioned seeing in another thread around here somewhere.

You're right that it's ironic that Hasbro is losing retail shelf space to itself. What makes it worse is that, from a shopper's point of view, Hasbro's film track record has been ****** since the first Iron Man and Transformers films. The Joe line tanked, the IM2 line tanked from our point of view, and TF2 didn't seem to do the sales that the first film did. Maybe the IM2 and TF2 lines sold better than they appeared to, but I'd be surprised if they sold anywhere near what Hasbro hoped they would.

Meanwhile, the new Joe line, which has some of the best product of the last 10 years, suffers as does the Marvel Universe line which fills the non-movie related void that Marvel superhero collectors have.

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"I sell the drugs that keep you people from seeing dragons at night." - Gus "Psych"

If they're just flippers like a diver has, I'd guess it's like Navy SEAL gear when they're dumped near shore but don't need the whole diving kit... There's a BBI Soldier in woodland fatigues with a breating harness and flippers for basically the same thing.